Eric Musselman reacts to learning history behind blowout loss vs. Auburn

Saturday’s loss to the Tigers was the worst defeat that Arkansas had ever suffered inside of Bud Walton Arena. Now, after laying a dud in their first conference game of the season, Eric Musselman hopes his team realizes the wrong kind of history that they made.

Musselman couldn’t believe the realization that the Razorbacks’ loss, an 83-51 defeat to No. 25 Auburn, was the most lopsided home loss in the history of the program during his postgame press conference. Before he answered, he had to clarify the question first on whether it was his worst as head coach or the worst of all time.

“Ever? Or during my tenure?” asked Musselman.

Once he got clarification, Musselman didn’t shy away from the fact of the matter.

“Yeah,” Musselman said. “That’s a pretty bold statement, you know what I mean? And it’s factual.”

From here, Musselman needs his team to understand the significance of their historic loss. It matters to him already because he knows the 100-year history of the program. He now expects to see them deal with the discomfort of it too as they look to move forward.

“I don’t know what it means to that locker room. I know what it means to me,” said Musselman. “The history of this program. I have incredible respect for everybody that has coached here, everybody that has played here.”

The 32-point loss to Auburn got completely out of hand in the second half. After a back and forth first half, the Tigers took a seven-point lead into the break that was still manageable.

However, coming out of the locker room, the Tigers opened the first six minutes of the half on a 15-2 run. That pushed the margin to 18 and was the start of the game getting fully out of reach. While Arkansas made some small pushes, none of them had any effect at all as the visitor’s lead continued to bloom to that final score that ended up being the worst in Fayetteville’s history.

In the end, Auburn shot 57.6% from the field, including 62.5% from three, in the second half. They also scored 24 points in the paint during that span. Meanwhile, the ‘Hog offense flatlined as they shot just 6-27 (22.2%) over the final 20 minutes while losing several other head-to-head statistics in the half.

This conference opener is going to end up in the unacceptable chapter of the history book at Arkansas. All Musselman and the Razorbacks can do now, though, is put it behind them and hope they don’t add any other installments to that section moving forward

“That’s a wild statement,” admitted Musselman.